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Stonehedge’s Levent Bozkurt says the arrangement is usually advantageous for the restaurant’s wine-dinner customers, too. “We don’t try to make the same margins as when someone orders a la carte in the dining room.” (Prices range from $95 to $125.)

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There’s no reason to think that a restaurant you love for its unbuttoned attitude is likely to morph into a nest of snobbery just because there’s a winemaker coming in; by the same token, don’t expect an establishment known for elegance and formality to kick off its brogues and show you its tattoos.

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Massachusetts liquor statutes ban restaurants and wineries from retail activities. Wine dinner attendees eager to purchase wine then and there will be disappointed. The work-around is for a retailer who stocks the wine to participate in the event. Guests can check off the wines they wish to order on an offer sheet circulated at the table, taking delivery later.

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How much fun you have may depend on whether the event takes on the feel of a seminar, larded with esoteric detail, or just a roaring good time with a train of interesting dishes emanating from a motivated chef and a string of entertaining anecdotes from a chatty speaker. The best experience is likely to be one that presents a bit of both.

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If you’re making a note to get yourself on someone’s mailing list with a view to being a guest at one these events, Christopher Howell of Cain Vineyard and Winery, a winemaker who’s in high dinner demand around the country, has a word of caution: Choose a wine dinner at a restaurant you are interested in, where wine you really want to try will be served. That may sound obvious, but “it’s like a blind date,” he says, “Getting the right guests is what makes a successful event.”